Ed McBain: Ten Plus One

They told each other they were looking for a specific human being who had slain another specific human being. They knew very well that it was impossible to crack every murder case that came their way, but they also knew that the proper amount of patience and legwork, coupled with the right questions posed to the right people, usually brought about the desired results. A man, they told themselves, doesn’t get killed unless someone feels he should be killed.

They changed their minds the very next day.

It was another glorious spring day.

It is almost impossible for the country dweller to understand what such a day can mean to the person living in the city. The city citizen has avidly listened to the television weather reports the night before, and now the first thing he does when he awakens to the jangling of the alarm clock is to walk warily to the window and peer up at the sky. He feels a first real awakening thrill if the sky is blue. He knows immediately that this is going to be a day when nothing can go wrong, and then—winter or summer, spring or fall—he will open the window to test the temperature of the air, basing his wardrobe, his attitude, his entire philosophy of life, on the findings he makes in those few first wakeful moments.

Randolph Norden heard the clock radio go on at 7:30 A.M. He had bought the clock radio because he figured it would be nice to awaken to music each morning. But his usual rising time was 7:30, news time, and each and every morning he was awakened by the sound of an announcer giving the latest bad news about Russia. He had tried setting the clock radio for 7:35, at which time the news had given way to music, but he found that he needed those extra five minutes if he was to get to the office on time. He had also tried setting the clock radio for 7:25, but then he began resenting the loss of five minutes’ sleep. And so, each morning, Randolph Norden listened to the bad news on a clock radio he had bought to provide music. It was, to his way of thinking, another example of the unfairness of life.

As he got out of bed, he heard the announcer telling him about some offshore islands someplace, and he muttered, “Go to hell, you and your islands,” and then walked wearily to the bedroom window, pulling up his pajama top and scratching his belly, generally resenting the clock radio and his wife, Mae, who was sound asleep in the bed, and even his children, who were sound asleep in their separate rooms at the other end of the apartment, and also the maid, who, although he was her employer, slept later than he each morning, making it necessary for him to get his own breakfast. He pulled up the shade, feeling reckless as he hoped sunlight would hit the bed and the face of his wife, and then feeling immediately guilty and turning rapidly to see if sunlight had indeed touched Mae’s face. It had not. For a desperate moment, he thought, No sun today, but then he looked out and over the rooftops to where the sky curved in robin’s-egg-blue artificiality, and a smile touched his mouth, and he gave a short affirmative nod, and then opened the window.

He stuck his head outside. The air was warm, with a gentle balmy breeze blowing south off the River Harb. From his twelfth-floor apartment, he could see the river traffic and the magnificent span of the bridge in the near distance. The smile widened into a grin. He left the window open, walked back to the bed, turned off the clock radio, and then took off his pajamas. He dressed swiftly and soundlessly, putting on underwear, trousers, socks, and shoes, and then going into the bathroom where he shaved with an electric razor. As he shaved, his convictions about the day began to take firmer, more confident shape. He was a man who was fond of repeating that his best thoughts always came to him while shaving, and he did indeed have some wonderfully inventive—or so they seemed to him—thoughts while he ran the razor over his stubble. By the time he had finished shaving, put on his shirt, tie, and jacket, and had gone into the kitchen to pour himself some juice and brew himself some coffee, he was anxious to get to his law office on Hall Avenue, where he would begin putting some of those wonderfully inventive ideas to work. He gulped his juice and coffee, and then marched to the other end of the apartment, where the children were still in bed. Joanie was awake by now, sitting up and reading a Golden Book, wearing the distorted features of half-asleep awareness.

“G’morning, Daddy,” she said, and then went back to her book.

He kissed her and said, “I’ll see you tonight, huh?” and she nodded and continued reading. He went into the other bedroom, where Mike was still asleep. He did not disturb him. He went instead, to the other end of the apartment again and kissed Mae, who mumbled something and then rolled over. He smiled, went to the front door, picked up his attaché case, and stepped into the hallway.

The elevator operator said, “Good morning, Mr. Norden. Beautiful day today.”

“Yes, it is, George,” he answered.

They rode in silence to the lobby. He got out, nodded in answer to George’s “Have a good day, Mr. Norden,” and then walked to the mailboxes, which he checked routinely even though he knew it was too early for a mail delivery. He opened the front door of the building, stepped out onto the pavement, looked up at the sky, and grinned again.

He was taking a deep breath of fresh spring air when the bullet struck him between the eyes and killed him.

The detective who caught the squeal at the 65th Precinct was a fairly hip organization man who tried to keep up with anything important happening in the department. Homicide was a rare and unusual occurrence in the posh 65th, and he was somewhat surprised when the beat patrolman called it in. He put on his hat, motioned to his partner, checked out a police sedan with two bald front tires, and drove over to where Randolph Norden was lying dead on the sidewalk. It didn’t take him very long to realize that Norden had been shot from somewhere high up in one of the buildings across the street, either a window or a roof; the entrance hole was between Norden’s eyes, and the exit hole was low on the back of his neck, indicating a very sharp angle of trajectory. He was not a cop anxious to shirk work; he was, in fact, a little reluctant to let go of a bona fide murder in a precinct where the biggest crimes were usually burglaries or street muggings. But he had read the morning’s newspaper, and he knew that a man named Anthony Forrest had been shot to death on Culver Avenue in the Eight-Seven the day before, and his mind made an automatic connection—but still, he decided to wait before relinquishing the case. He did not have to wait long.

Ballistics told him that the bullet that had passed through Norden’s head and flattened itself against the pavement, and the discharged shell found on the roof of the building across the street, were separate parts of a .308-caliber Remington cartridge. The report went on to point out that the .308 had a full metal case, with a copper-jacketed bullet that had six lands and grooves, a soft point, a right twist, and weighed 191.6 grains. And then, because someone at Ballistics was on the ball, there was an additional handwritten note on the bottom of the report:

The detective at the 65th read the report and the additional comment, and then said to no one in particular in the squadroom, “What the hell makes him think he had to tell me?”

He moved the phone into position and began dialing.

The possibility that Carella and Meyer had fastidiously avoided was the possibility that Anthony Forrest had been killed by a sniper.